Owl & Ibis - A Confluence Of Minds

Kudos to John Cruickshank for his superb June 26, 2018 O&I slideshow presentation, "The Humanities, Then and Now - Reflections on the  Dark Mountain Project ." John's multi-media PowerPoint slideshow of his talk is available here . A PDF of John's presentation, minus the multi-media, may be found here . All individual documents, links and other files referenced in his talk may be downloaded here . Using the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) John presented articles and book reviews he found relating to a number of key words - "Anthropocene," "back to nature," "resistance," "Humanities science relationships," "selling the Humanities," among others. The following is a selection of articles, books, book reviews and other content he found and briefly introduced to the group. After each entry are my brief notes taken during John's talk. Some of the following are proprietary and have paywalls. ...

"Things I Would Not Normally Recycle" On Tuesday, June 12, 2018, the Owl & Ibis Confluence of Minds took a swipe at the Dark Mountain Project by tapping into our respective creative spirits. Why? Perhaps to actively, personally demonstrate to ourselves that the human creative spirit is alive, well and ever necessary - now, if not more than ever, during the 200,000-year evolutionary history of Homo sapiens . Necessary, especially now, given DMP's and others' claims of impending global catastrophe(s) from human arrogance and delusion, and wasteful, unbridled-growth global capitalism. Since January, O&I has been closely examining DMP's bleak forecast, and DMP's suggestion that only the arts, especially literary efforts at a new "story" for civilization, can help avert the coming fall of Humankind. Tuesday evening's presentation, "Current Worldviews and Visions of the Future, Art" led by Judith Moore, and the upcoming O...

Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468) Johannes Gutenberg's printing press met the Catholic Church's need for consistency in its canon at a time when the Christian church was divided within and challenged from without. Later, this great invention assisted the Church's central European detractors by facilitating the beginning and spread of the Protestant Reformation. The invention then promoted science by hastening the dissemination and exchange of scientific ideas about the composition and workings of the universe, and how to study them. More broadly, it greatly contributed to the Western Enlightenment in terms of making ideas - such as how to improve individual well being (freedom and justice), and how to better organize and facilitate group living - available to more people. The details of these important events in world history and what led to an invention that deeply influenced them all is a story well told in  Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words  (2002)...

What follows in this note and the linked essay below may be obvious to you. Maybe such things become more obvious to most of us the longer we live; and if, in living longer, we find ourselves among the fortunate who learn from our experience. I think the matter of decision-making prior to taking actions in our lives is worth thinking about to some degree, at least occasionally. Doing so seems especially important in our teens. Or maybe later in early adulthood when we start to put in practice and test the ideas we learned, fully or partially, as teenagers. But, really, who among us ever did this in our youth? Rarely, except maybe when we were smacked between eyes by the reality of some stupid action we had taken, did we stop and consider what led us to such an action. And when we did we were seldom able to ferret out a good, useful answer from our under-cooked brains and the cauldron of hormones we were drowning in. That said, I think it is important from time to time - ...

AGIP/Bridgeman Images Jean-Louis Trintignant in the role of Hamlet, at the Théâtre de la Musique, Paris, 1971 "The Question of Hamlet" by James Shapiro April 19, 2018 The New York Review of Books Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness by Rhodri Lewis  This book relates to my past efforts on this blog and elsewhere arguing my hope for and the possibility of a global morality. See  here ,  here ,  here ,  here , and  here . I’m not thinking of a morality based on an absolute truth, rather a scientifically-derived provisional truth based on the most simple humane principles. Those being minimizing the harm we do as individuals and maximizing the wellbeing and flourishing of the groups we live in. This would include ideals for human ecology – codes for our relationship to the planet and all its resources and other life forms. We are heading in that direction through the conventions and protocols of the United Nations. Author and skeptic M...

Suddenly seeing a snake in your path, followed by a fixed wide-eyed stare, muscle tenseness, increased heart rate, perhaps a jump backwards, are emotionally reflexive responses, not deliberative or reasoned choices and actions. There is little if any deliberative, choice-making reasoning occurring in this instance. During the snake encounter emotion played a dominant role. Reasoning, as a reflection on the events that just happened, came second: “Yes, that was a snake, a poisonous one. Good thing I saw it when I did. To have stepped on it may have made it bite me. I might have died if it had.” Reasoning can also be a slower more deliberative post hoc rationalization of the emotions we experience and the emotion-driven actions we take: “So-and-so repulses me physically, visually. I have a bad feeling being in his/her presence. I will avoid this person because of this.” These examples do not justify a now widely accepted conclusion that reasoning, in general and most often, is ...

Previous Owl & Ibis Slideshows and Documents For the most current listing of slideshows and documents go to the O&I Main Page (click here ), then click on the three-bar icon at the upper left.  ∞ The Dark Mountain Project, Full Slideshow , Jim Lassiter      Part I ;  Part II ;  Part III ;  Part IV ;  Part V ;  Part VI ;  Part VII ;  Part VIII ;  Part IX ∞ Twilight of American Sanity, An Interpretive Synopsis, John Cruickshank ∞ Better Angels of Our Nature, A Synopsis, Steve Yothment ∞ Civics and Character Education in Schools, Susan Naschke ∞ Activism in Trumpland - Why Bother?, Marcia Hendershot ∞ Fake News, John Cruickshank ∞ Truth - Universal, Social, Personal, Jim Lassiter ∞ David Hume – Themes, Arguments, Ideas, Richard Berry ∞ Enlightenment Ideals: Wrong or Inevitable?, Jim Lassiter ∞ Age of Enlightenment, Jim Lassiter ∞ Death & Dying Well, Jim Lassiter ∞ Masaabaland, Uganda, Jim ...

At the February 13, 2018 Owl & Ibis meeting the various premises and arguments of the Dark Mountain Project were presented and discussed. The full PowerPoint slide presentation is available here:  DMP O&I Slide Show . Or, for faster, easier downloading here's the slide show in nine parts: Part I ;  Part II ;  Part III ;  Part IV ;  Part V ;  Part VI ;  Part VII ;  Part VIII ;  Part IX It was agreed that to better determine if the DMP premises are true and decide if its arguments are acceptable, more information was needed on current and projected future global conditions in these areas: Economics Environmentalism The Humanities Politics The Natural Sciences and Technology The Social Sciences Attendees chose Environmentalism, the Humanities, and the Social Sciences as the first areas to study, present to the group, and discuss. Economics, Politics and the Natural Sciences and Technology will be addressed after ...

Philip K. Dick and the Fake Humans Henry Farrell Boston Review January 16, 2018 Think we don’t need a new story to replace the current human-centric myth of civilization? That we are well-provided for by the ideologies and actions of those controlling the current global system’s politics, economics, religion, education, science and technology? That they and their ideas and efforts can adequately address any disaster that might arise; or that they and the rest of us can make clear-headed, well-reasoned course corrections as we progress toward the Enlightenment’s flourishing and perfection of persons and societies? This essay (link) argues that the realities that society’s and the world’s powerful have created for us have impaired Humankind’s ability to reason and behave optimally. That the raw material of reasoning, factual evidence, is intentionally being distorted or ignored by the powerful. Their goal, I think, is to put the hopes and aspirations the Enlightenment ...

Happy New Year! This year's first meeting will be on Jan 9, 2018 - "Twilight of American Sanity: A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Age of Trump" by Allen Frances, A Book Synopsis Presentation and Discussion led by John Cruickshank. See below for directions to the new O&I meeting location. Thanks to the generosity of Jemal Douté, Owl & Ibis begins 2018 at a new location: Douté Counseling Services Magnolia Office Park Suite 508 500 W Lanier Ave Fayetteville, GA 30214 Attached is a map and a photo of the new location. DRIVING DIRECTIONS: From W. Lanier Ave (Hwy 54W) in Fayetteville, take Lafayette Avenue, south. Go straight into the Magnolia Office Park lot, bear right toward the 501-508 block of suites. Suite 508 is the last office at the end. O&I